Angel vs. Angel
by Moonshadow1
Summary: When Max thinks she can outsmart her guardian angel, she finds out her life is kind of wonderful after all


It's Christmas Eve. Max is trying to get in the spirit. Cindy's strung some colored lights around the windows, lit a lot of candles, and is cooking up some kind of spiced cider goo on the stove. She's happy, humming Christmas carols. Max is just cranky and restless. When her pager goes off, showing Logan's number, it pushes her over the edge.  
  
"Going out. Need to clear my head," Max says, tossing the pager on her bed and grabbing her bike. Cindy shrugs.  
  
"Whatever," she says, and turns back to the cider. She's used to it by now.  
  
Night is falling over the city. Perfect time to head up to the Needle. The streets are wet and empty. Quiet. Here and there a lone string of faded Christmas lights or a tattered garland decorates a shop window, but most places are dark, locked and barred. It's a quick ride, and when she gets there she resumes the game she's been playing with herself all week.  
  
Ever since she and Cindy watched that old movie, It's a Wonderful Life, Max has been thinking about how she could do a way better job offing herself than old George Bailey managed to do. Up here on the Needle, it's fun, in kind of a sick way, to figure out how she could beat that angel Clarence at his own game. At Manticore, a Second Class rank meant exactly that, second-class abilities, so she's sure she could whip his invisible ass in no time. Thought he was so clever, showing George all those tragic things, blah blah. That evil old guy at the bank? Renfro and White would eat him for lunch. Let's see Donna Reed all covered in sores and out of her mind with fever, Max thinks, and then we'll talk about wishing you were never born.  
  
"Okay, let's talk," says an agreeable voice next to her.  
  
Max jumps. Who the hell is up here with her? X-5? X-6? She tenses, but all she sees is a small, rather chubby young woman with light brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She sure doesn't look like someone who could make it to the top of the Needle. "Who are you?" Max demands.  
  
"Your guardian angel," says the girl.  
  
"Oh yeah? I've got news for you. I'm not dead yet. And where were you when I was dead? I didn't see you hanging around then."  
  
"Oh, that," says the angel. "Well, you were distracted. You were, ah, reliving certain fantasies --"  
  
"Hey!" Max objects. "That was personal stuff!" This is creepy, she decides.  
  
"What, you think I wanted to watch all that?" the angel says. "You're darned right it was personal. But that's not important right now. I'm here to take you up on your challenge."  
  
"What challenge?"  
  
"You think you can beat a guardian angel at her own game? Bring it on, Max. Let's do it."  
  
Max laughs. "You actually think you can convince me the world's a better place with me in it?"  
  
"Yes," the angel says simply.  
  
"You're on," Max agrees.  
  
They leave the Needle and climb on the bike. "Three chances," the angel tells Max. "We can go anywhere you want. Seattle to Wyoming in just a few seconds, even. No problem."  
  
"Fine. Manticore then," Max says.  
  
As Max expects, Manticore is still around. That's not good, of course, but as they stand on the hilltop looking down at the buildings Renfro once torched, Max is sure that even with Manticore in business her brothers and sisters are better off without her. "Who's here?" she asks.  
  
In an instant they're standing in front of the infirmary. Ben is lying strapped to a bed. He's clearly under heavy sedation, and he looks awful. Max sighs.  
  
"Yeah, they caught him. So -- better off dead?" the angel asks, and Max nods reluctantly. The angel says, "That's one for me. Where to now?"  
  
This time Max is going to choose better. "Portland," she says, and they're standing on the roof of the building across the street from where Tinga and Charlie live. Through the window she can see Charlie and Case, a Christmas tree, and Tinga standing nearby. She's speaking to someone. She walks towards the Christmas tree and Max sees that she's pregnant again. And the person she's speaking to is Zack. They're all laughing and there are even presents under the tree.  
  
"Yes!" Max shouts.   
  
"Look around you, Max," the angel says.  
  
Max does, and realizes the building is under surveillance by Manticore soldiers. Fear grips her for a moment, and then she shakes it off. "No fair. Are you gonna tell me they all get killed or something and if I were alive at least only Tinga would die? Do you know that for sure?"  
  
"Well, no," the angel admits. "It hasn't happened yet."  
  
"Then I get this one," Max insists.   
  
"Best two out of three, then?" the angel says.   
  
"Fine, because this next one's mine," Max says. "Fogle Towers."  
  
This is it, the moment she's sure of. Since she never broke into Logan's apartment that night, she figures, he never wasted any time trying to get her to protect Lauren and Sophy. He got them out sooner, before Bruno had a chance to set up the hit. There wasn't any shooting, Peter isn't dead, and Logan's doing fine. She'll sneak into the apartment and there he'll be, alive, wealthy, walking, crusading against injustice like there's no tomorrow. The tough moment will be when she sees him with his woman. She hopes it's not Asha, but she can stand even that, knowing that all the rest of it never happened.   
  
To Max's surprise the apartment door is unlocked. She pushes it open and sees a man and a woman standing in front of the mirror where Logan once admired her, before she was never born. She knows the man, but it's not Logan. It's Uncle Jonas, for crying out loud, and a giggling blonde woman. Max is appalled. "Where's Logan?" she demands.  
  
In a flash they're standing on a dark hillside in the rain. The angel holds a single candle, which is somehow still burning. It illuminates a large but simple tombstone bearing the words, "Logan Cale 1988 - 2019."  
  
The angel looks smug. "You can't argue with this one, Max, it's a done deal. That night, when you broke into Logan's apartment, someone else had their eye on the place too. Bruno. When you got in, it messed him up, with building security being called and all. Without that --" The angel shrugs. "Bruno got in, killed all four of them, got out. You don't want to know where he is now. It'll just make you even madder. Oh yeah, and Jonas took the apartment after Logan's death for his love nest. He's a cheat, you know. In both lives."  
  
For a long time Max says nothing. All this time -- all those hours blaming herself for the chair, the virus, everything -- and it all comes down to this. Without her, none of it would have happened, because without her, Logan wouldn't have been around for it to happen to. For a moment she's tempted to argue that he's still better off this way. But she's been dead herself, and she knows that's baloney the minute she thinks it.   
  
"You got me," she tells the angel. The angel takes a huge theatrical bow, and the candle goes out. Max finds herself on her bike in front of Fogle Towers. Heart pounding, she heads for her favorite entrance, the skylight. To her relief the hallway is quite empty.  
  
She waits. After a couple of minutes she hears the swoosh of rubber on hardwood, and Logan rolls into the room, hair tousled, eyes sleepy. When he sees Max, he smiles.  
  
"Thought maybe Santa was coming down the chimney," he says.  
  
Max feels a rush of love so strong that for a few seconds she's speechless. Now she knows something else, too. Logan isn't the only one who's better off. "Sorry, no bag of presents," she hears herself saying. Logan gives her that look, the one that makes her want to spend the rest of her life gazing into his eyes.  
  
"You're here, Max. You're my present," he says softly.  
  
Max finally smiles. 


End file.
